Friday, May 6, 2016

Why Jeremy Corbyn is bad for the British Labour Party

No, I regret to inform you it is not because of his criticisms of Israel, or the recent anti-Semitism hysteria in the Labour party.

It is because:

(1) he is in favour of Britain remaining in the EU and has become pro-EU (see here);

(2) he is in favour of unending, catastrophic mass immigration into Britain (see here and here).

(3) he is in favour of Turkey joining the EU, a measure which would be a catastrophe for Europe (see here).

These things are becoming politically toxic all over Europe, for good reasons.

Jeremy Corbyn is in favour of catastrophic policies that will continue to cause a massive swing to the populist right all over Europe, and in Britain. Corbyn is more likely to accelerate the collapse of the left through these disastrous policies, and to drive people away from the left.

It is easy to find such people. People who were once left-wing but have been driven right away from the liberal and Labour left and who now despise the left for its extreme political correctness, its hatred of free speech, its toxic identity politics, its pro-EU policies, its betrayal of the working class, and its bizarre obsessive-compulsive mass immigration policies of culturally-incompatible people. E.g., the YouTube personality Pat Condell, as in the video below.

It is people like this, once Labour voters, who are now voting for UKIP.

Regarding the video--most of his criticisms are valid, but he borders on contradicting himself when it comes to free speech, and this is a common problem with many anti-PC crusaders.

Free speech means the freedom to criticize the speech of others. Yes, it may be annoying when someone calls someone else a 'bigot' for expressing an opinion, but such criticism is not a curtailment of free speech--it is the exercise of free speech. That doesn't change because it's annoying, or misguided, or what have you.

Of course, using violence or the power of the state to silence someone is certainly a curtailment of free speech; but merely criticizing the speech of others is not--indeed, it is precisely the opposite--and in saying that it is he partakes of the same disingenuousness he attributes to PC crusaders. (i.e., he criticizes people who try to "shout down"--translation: criticize strongly--opinions they dislike, and claims they are the true bigots because they do not entertain the perspectives of others; but he is, without a hint of irony, doing the *exact* same thing, only he's doing it to them! Yet this somehow 'doesn't count' because it's him doing the criticizing? Pretty disingenuous!)

A perfect example would be the thoroughly disingenuous Sargon of Akkad, he says people need free speech but then can't handle that they have free speech, and then calls for a petition to block people from learning. He would undoubtedly support such a thing, seeing as he started the petition and has consistently discussed his hopes for it to be implemented - not in irony.

That kind of behaviour is rife in the anti-feminism/anti-PC/anti-regressive-left community. They realise they can't have what they want and never will, and then just uproot their core principles.

Reminds me of someone like Stefan Molyneux, a self proclaimed anarcho-capitalist that supports Donald Trump, and uses DMCA (the state) to knock people off youtube. Then goes on about how feminists block free speech and how important free speech is, and free markets, and a lack of protectionism.

Don't even get me started with how that community don't seem to recognise that emotion - and how people feel, are plausible consequences for determining the moral worth of an action - even if that person is wrong. At least for the moral theories that they tend to adopt.

No. Shouting down is different. Here I am exercising free speech, pointing out your error. If I hacked blogspot to obscure your comment that would be shouting down. When people attend a lecture and interlopers shout and make noise that is shouting down, and it is not "more speech" but the physical obstruction of the speech of others. So he's not disingenuous.

If you could prove that SJW courses are as flawed and filled with lies or falsehoods as, say, creation science, would you still want it in the universities?

E.g., the demand to teach creation science in the biology departments of publically funded universities is in no sense a free speech issue. This is the unreasonable crackpot demand of cultists which will corrupt science and have horrendous effects on education and our civilisation.

Question, are you in support of banning (or suspending) courses at universities in "SJW" studies (feminism, sociology, cultural studies, etc) ? Like Sargon of Akkad.

You might be confusing the creationist studies vs evolution debate with what I'm referencing here. That was (mainly) religious right wing demand to teach creationism in the science class, and the debate was about how it should be separated from the science department - because it's not science. It was never ever ever about banning it from being an elective subject, a subject one could choose voluntarily - this is what over 60,000 "free speech" lovers are calling for, including the disingenuous Sargon of Akkad.

Doesn't matter whether I would want the courses in universities or not, it matters whether one is calling for the state to ban something being taught at universities because it gets in the way of one's convictions.

LK, I assume you are open to opening up the borders more than they are at the moment though - at the least for certain people. Just not completely open borders.

Do you not feel there is an agent-neutral moral obligation to maximize utility for the most amount of people in such situations? Letting in plenty more vetted migrants, although not to a ridiculous extent so as to completely damage state sponsored programs for those that already live there.

From what I understand, you hold to a rule consequentialist ethic - what is the consequence (goal) for you that determines the moral worth of an action, (is it to preserve a certain value of some kind? in the most amount of people?)

Yes, of course there is a moral consequentialist argument for taking a **fair and reasonable** number of genuine refugees, provided they are culturally compatible.

But actually the West could help refugees without actually bringing them to the West. We could -- with our huge wealth and diplomatic power -- provide generous subsidies to the immigrants in Turkey to emigrate to culturally compatible safe countries in North Africa or the gulf states.

Culturally compatible is the key. But impermissible since it implies a cultural judgment. But this is part of why Trump is doing well, and why the attacks on him focus on alleged isms rather than facts.

LK,What I'm wondering is what is your consequentialist goal though? i.e Bentham's is happiness, maximizing happiness, agent neutral, for the most amount of people possible.For others it is to promote one's own good. For others again it is to promote one's own nation.What is the consequence that you are trying to promote? The underlying end goal.

You used terms such as "fair and reasonable...genuine refugees...culturally compatible" which seems to imply you do not support an agent neutral approach? (maybe some kind of agent's merit is required for moral calculation - if so, what merit?).

You recognise the urgent need to reduce immigration, and the populist right will do just that. Is the fact that they're called 'populist right' and not 'left' really enough for you not to support them?

In this case you believe that tathcerite liberterian economic policies specially in our world with sluggish economic growtn and stagnation will bring second great depression (its not less worse then this mass inmigration its can even lead to mass emigration and brain drain huge unemplpyment and etc).

So if you are post keynesian tathcerite ideology is not less ratastrophic than mass immigration.

Its possible to reverse mass immigration as well the question is what the cost we are ready to pay for that.

But yes in some sense you are right the problem is that with neoliberal mind set of the politicians from the right and the left even if there will be serious recession or depression i dont think they will be ready to pay the cost of changing paradigm into healthier one at least not fast enough,and this will cause a lot of miseary to a big amount of people.

So for now right wing non racist populist organizations is the lesser evil but for post keyensian is stil an evil a big one.

@LK - Regarding your point (2), you couldn't be less nuanced about it hence seeming to be borderline 'anti-immigrant'. Unless you are more detailed about this issue, there's not much difference between you or members of the UKIP.

(2) as for UKIP, I doubt whether you actually understand or have read their actual policy on immigration.

UKIP’s proposed reforms on immigration, as described on its party website, would make the UK have an immigration policy rather like that of Canada or New Zealand. These nations were tolerant liberal democracies – not racist, fascist states, but people on the left are so bizarrely unhinged now they want to paint UKIP as fascist, racist Nazis.